Forgiving Her Father
by Khiori
Summary: Jane needs help figuring out why she hasn't yet forgiven her dad.


Jane hadn't forgiven him.

She knew she was _supposed_ to. Psychologists, priests and mothers had pretty much pounded that one into humanity's psyche permanently. They were right, of course. You couldn't move on with your life if you were holding onto the past.

There was just one problem.

She hadn't done it yet.

And to make matters worse, she didn't know _why_ she hadn't.

It was her _father_ for pity's sake!

But truthfully, and a bit shamefully, Jane had to admit to herself that she rarely even _thought_ of him now. Usually only when Ma or one of her brothers made some offhand comment. Or just before Father's Day, when she used to pick him up tickets for his favorite team. And Christmas, of course. Hard not to think of part of your family around then. Sometimes randomly, like when she passed a display counter with its colognes and she suddenly remembered what he used to smell like getting ready for Mass. But most of the time, it was like he simply just didn't exist anymore to her.

It should have freaked her out. She knew that, too.

At the least it should have made it easy to forgive him.

Yet, it did neither.

It made her quietly and uneasily wonder just what sort of woman she _was_.

So Jane avoided really thinking about it for a long time. She buried herself in her work at the precinct, pulling as many extra shifts as she could just so she would be too tired to do anything but crash when she got back to her apartment. She skipped Sunday family dinners with Ma and her brothers any time Maura couldn't come and keep what was left of the Rizzoli family in bizarre but safe topics, just so she wouldn't possibly have to deal with it between the tortellini and the crostata, when Italian mothers traditionally brought up uncomfortable nosy inquiries into their children's lives.

But she wasn't an idiot.

Jane might not have Maura's genius brain but she knew she had to figure out what was going on inside her if she was going to get any peace.

She just was a little . . . afraid what she might discover about herself.

Because how could it be _good_ if she couldn't do something _right_ like forgive her father?

Eventually, however, it bothered her enough that whether she just decided to bite the bullet or just wanted to get whatever it was over with, Jane finally dragged herself to Confession to talk about it. She laid it all out as she sat uncomfortably in the small claustrophobic booth smelling the smoke and wax of candles and the pungent scent of incense that still clung to the curtains and made herself come right out and ask her priest what was wrong with her.

Why hadn't she forgiven her father?

He was silent for a while on his side of the booth and she could hear the quiet movement of the rosary in his fingers as he pondered her question deeply and then he slowly and thoughtfully asked if she was still _angry_ with her father.

She didn't have an answer for her priest, because she didn't know if she still was.

But that weekend, when Jane was grumpily grocery shopping for milk and cold cereal and anything that only involved a microwave to cook, somewhere in the eye garish whining kid packed aisle between the Honey Nut Cheerios and Cap'n Crunch she suddenly realized that she genuinely _wasn't_.

Sure, she'd been at the beginning. _Really_ angry. But that wasn't a surprise by any means. How could she _not_ be angry at the man who broke his family all to hell and then left his kids to try and pick up the devastated pieces of their mother's heart?

But, she knew she wasn't angry any more.

The daily grind of life had worn it gradually away until it had gone. There had been too many more important things to feel. Like the wild terror of killers and the desperate joy of saving friends.

Unfortunately, that meant if it wasn't anger something else had to be the problem.

Jane stubbornly wrestled with it for another month before she finally groaned to herself, gave a martyr's sigh, and slouched into The Dirty Robber after hours to find Ma. Angela had been truly delighted enough to be let into her thoughts that it had made her wince and make a reluctant embarrassed mental note to talk more with her mother. Then she made herself sit still at the battered wood bar smelling the yeasty beer in the bottle she held and the last heavy scents of spicy buffalo wings and grilled burgers that hung in the air from the night's dinner crowd and ask her mother the same question she'd asked their priest.

Why hadn't she forgiven her father?

Ma had chewed on her lip while she cleaned a glass and thought about it a while before finally she worriedly asked if Jane still _grieved_ him leaving.

Jane didn't have an answer for her mother, because she wasn't sure if she still did.

But a week or so later, when she sweated hard and her lungs strained and she tasted that metallic warning on her tongue that her body was nearing its limit as she pushed herself that last extra mile on her run, somewhere between Seventh and the welcome relaxation of her steaming shower, she knew that she really _wasn't._

Detectives saw more than their share of tears. It was just part of the job. And though it never seemed to stop her own from coming, the constant exposure to others' grief over the years had hardened her enough that her tears dried sooner now than what they once had before she put on the badge. Sometimes even sooner than perhaps they should.

Jane knew that she didn't grieve him any more.

She had stopped back that long exhausting night she'd had to hold Ma through what would have been her wedding anniversary as she sobbed out the final complete emotional realization of what she had already intellectually known. That there would be no miraculous change of his heart and her marriage really _had_ ended.

It had hurt so badly that something in her had simply gone _numb_ and the grief had just . . . died.

Jane fought down her frustration and tried to be reasonable with herself.

She had to be getting closer, at least, to finding out what was wrong in her! But if it wasn't anger or grief, what the crap _was_ it?

Jane struggled with it for a month or two before she wanted to bang her head on her desk in sheer aggravation. Give her even the smallest forensic evidence and she could figure out a murder. But make her deal with personal introspection and she was obviously hopelessly out of her depth.

Finally she reverted to what she had always done as a green rookie and drove herself to Korsak's home late on a Thursday. He had blinked a bit at finding her sheepishly standing there and then shook his head, chuckling at old memories, and sat her down as he used to at his old kitchen table. Jane sat there smelling the sharp black coffee before them and the warm mellow scent of the baking banana cake in the oven and talked it out. When she wound down, she asked him the same question she'd asked her priest and Ma.

Why hadn't she forgiven her father?

Korsak leaned back in his chair and seriously thought about it for a while as if it was one of their more troubling cases and then he looked her in the eye and calmly asked her if she still _resented_ him.

Jane didn't have an answer for Korsak, because she couldn't tell if she still did.

But a few days later, when she stood on the front porch of a stranger's home trying bitterly to ignore the toys scattered about, somewhere between taking that last deep breath and putting on her carefully controlled cop face and before she reached out for that first knock as the grim bearer of news no one ever should have brought, she knew that she actually _wasn't._

Not resentful for the actual devastation he had brought suddenly into all their lives, like their own small familial Katrina. Though there had been more than enough of _that_ when it happened. And not, in all rueful irony, even because of all the _happiness_ they had slowly and painfully pulled out of the wreckage over the years.

Even though for so long it just hadn't seemed _right_ somehow that they actually ended up better off having their family destroyed and rebuilt. Because what did that say about what their family had been _before?_ But the resentment for all the happiness got swallowed up in it and lost.

No, she knew that she didn't resent him any more.

But that left her right back where she was before and Jane had the slightly crazy desire to find something to shoot. Just so she could feel some sort of _success_. This was why she always tried to avoid the state headshrinkers when they descended on the precinct when all hell broke loose on a case. Or after a badge funeral. She _hated_ trying to analyze her feelings. She was a _doer_.

And it just didn't make any _sense_ at all to her.

If it wasn't anger or grief or resentment, what was _left?_

Why hadn't she forgiven her father?

Yet, while Jane lay wearily awake in her tangled sheets staring fiercely up at her cracked ceiling, watching the dawn slowly slide pink and orange across it from her dirty window, her thoughts turned the problem over and over, this way and that, but try as she might she still couldn't find any answers.

The only thing she could think of to do was to ask Maura.

Which might ordinarily have made her laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it. Maura was her absolute best friend. Brilliant and cultured and successful as all get out. If hell was freezing over, you could count on her to be at your back ready to fight with her favorite bone saw. And in her best Jimmy Choos. All while giving you a run of adorably aggravating geeky facts about the ending of the world or the devil himself. But even Maura knew that her serious kryptonite was figuring out the _human stuff_. Which didn't bode well for Jane, because that was what she needed help on right now.

Unfortunately, that only left her brothers to ask and, well, she might as well give up entirely at that point.

And Jane couldn't do that because she _had to_ _know_.

She had to know what was wrong in her.

She had to know what sort of woman she actually was.

It was the only way she was going to get _peace_.

She needed to know why she hadn't forgiven her father.

Which was why eventually, in spite of all her misgivings about the potential laughing stock she was about to make of herself if anyone in the precinct or her family found out about it, that Jane finally found herself at last sitting desperately on the edge of Maura's neatly kept desk in her eccentric but warm office long after the both of them were actually supposed to be off their shifts, telling everything in one long almost breathless run. All her thoughts, all her feelings, all the questions. Until finally she asked Maura the same thing she had asked her priest and Ma and Korsak.

And Maura didn't have to think about it at all.

She just turned soft hazel eyes to her and gently asked if Jane still _loved_ her father.

And Jane had the answer right there for Maura.

She looked down and quietly admitted: _yes._

Then Maura reached out and laid a comforting elegant hand on top of one of Jane's scarred hands.

And told her quietly _that_ was why she hadn't forgiven her father.

There wasn't anything wrong in Jane at all. She was just the kind of woman who hadn't stopped hurting, yet. Because love sometimes took longer to heal than other things. But when it finally did, she would be able to forgive him. And then peace would come all on its own.

Apparently you didn't _have_ to be able to figure out all the human stuff.

You just had to know the heart of your best friend.

Jane slid off the edge of Maura's desk and just hugged her hard.


End file.
